


A Forgotten Story

by Nebulad



Series: To Live Without Fear [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Divergent, F/M, Gen, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-07-27 06:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7606774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nebulad/pseuds/Nebulad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kavi’s coup had failed, the coup he’d promised he wouldn’t try. <i>So you take over the Altus’ bloody mansion, what then Kavi? Where do you go from there?</i> She’d been angry and he’d <i>promised</i> and now he was dead. <i>Reckless</i> man, he’d never left his forests despite what he thought. Not even Veren could make him forget being Dalish, and it was a life he <i>wanted</i>. Veren had wanted it too, but had enough sense to know that running away to join the Dalish from <i>Vyrantium</i> was a fool's errand. Elves in the south fled because no one wanted them in their cities anyway.</p><p>Tevinter was carried by elves, and someone up high in their gilded towers knew it. Veren was owned by no one and neither was Kavi, but slaves they were nonetheless.</p><p>And for his gall, Veren and Shri would be killed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Forgotten Story

Veren was doing the laundry when she heard of her husband’s death. An old servant had seen it happen and managed to limp away faster than the guards could clean up the mess. Kavi, with his dark eyes and bold _vallaslin_ the colour of dried blood… he was dead. It’d been a sword from one of the guards, which meant he hadn’t even made it to the Altus before being cut down.

He’d fucking _promised_ her he wouldn’t even try. He’d looked at his family and _swore_ that he would safeguard himself, that no foolish _mien’harel_ would tear them apart. And now he was dead.

She felt all at once like her insides had been torn out of her, a crawling numbness working from her gut to her chest to encase her in ice. Breath escaped her in frozen heaves; she dropped the sheet she’d been hanging, but she supposed it was just as well. She wouldn’t need it anymore anyway. It landed in a mud puddle— not that it had rained in awhile, but there always seemed to be foul brown mess in the Alienage— and she stared down at it in wonder as it soaked up the mud.

She thought of their courtship when they’d been just a little younger than they were now— than _she_ was now— and thought of all his boldness and recklessness that only excited her. More than one person had told her that his dreams were idle and while he could earn a living he could never forget the forests of his youth… but she hadn’t cared. Kavi was beautiful and they were in love. He would lie in bed with her and whisper that she was worth every hardship that led him to the city, and she told him in return that he was the best thing to ever happen to Vyrantium. He worked just as hard as any city elf she’d ever met, and so they were wed.

She worshipped no gods— how Kavi had _tried_ to show her his Creators, of Mythal across his eyes and her husband Elgar-nan, but she wouldn’t idly worship gods content to let her and her people suffer— so she thanked the hunched old woman who had rushed over for the forewarning, trying to steady her breath. She’d seen neighbours who wilted when this tragedy struck them, and for their hesitance they were cut down. She would not follow them.

First thing was to grab Shri.

Their child, her and Kavi’s born so soon after the wedding that everyone had known they’d been sleeping together beforehand, was in the house, occupied by some stray blocks an old neighbour had made for her. Upon catching sight of her mother, the baby perked up and babbled excitedly, knocking down whatever she’d been in the process of haphazardly building. “Come on now, _vhenan_ ,” Veren hummed, trying to stay calm. If she cried then Shri would, and wouldn’t know to stop when the time was right.

Veren lifted her, brushing back some black wisps of hair. She would have curls, like her father had. Kavi had been thrilled that the baby looked so much like him, lying in bed and speculating on what _vallaslin_ she would have. The fool wanted to take Shri and Veren both out to his Dalish clan, except that he didn’t know where they were and it was too dangerous to try and flee with an infant.

Now it didn’t matter. If they stayed they were dead, and if they were caught they were equally so. They had to find a Dalish Clan _eventually,_ and if they didn’t there were infinite cities that ran on the labour of elves. Veren would make it and Shri would too, and Veren would toil for _shem_ gladly so long as it meant Shri was safe.

Curls like her father, but big green eyes like Veren’s which had only thrilled Kavi more. _The best of both of us, a baby so beautiful the_ shem _will barely be able to look upon her._ The child was being quiet in her arms, which was good. She ducked into the back alleys of the Alienage, moving along and trying not to be seen. If anyone caught her— a neighbour even— they would tell the guards where she went.

Kavi’s coup had failed, the coup he’d _promised_ he wouldn’t try. _So you take over the Altus’ bloody mansion, what then Kavi? Where do you go from there?_ She’d been angry and he’d _promised_ and now he was dead. _Reckless_ man, he’d never left his forests despite what he thought. Not even Veren could make him forget being Dalish, and it was a life he _wanted._ Veren had wanted it too, but had enough sense to know that running away to join the Dalish from _Vyrantium_ was a fool's errand. Elves in the south fled because no one wanted them in their cities anyway.

Tevinter was carried by elves, and someone up high in their gilded towers knew it. Veren was owned by no one and neither was Kavi, but slaves they were nonetheless.

And for his gall, Veren and Shri would be killed. It was for the best, really, to not let broken ties linger. The surefire way to squash resentment and discontent was to kill anyone who felt it. They weren’t the first— those who weren’t slaves, killed for one reason for another, sealed the fate of their families. Slaves who had volunteered for their lot had their families taken care of too, just in case.

_Damn it Kavi._

Shri babbled as Veren followed her mental map of the very outskirts of Vyrantium. There were weaknesses in the walls, weaknesses in guard rotation. She’d memorized them all as a girl, just in case. She’d memorized them again when she’d been married, so certain that he would save her with his dreams and his nerve.

And again when Shri was born for this very occasion, because they still were not among Kavi’s people and the fact seemed to grate on him with every passing day.

She found the place she wanted by the edges of the city that overlooked a short spread of wild forest, where the sewers emptied out into the river off the Nocen Sea. The gate over the pipe was left unlocked, and Veren tucked Shri into the sling on her chest. Their escape involved some creative climbing and one moment where Veren was nearly fucking certain she’d drop her one year old into the river full of human shit, but in the end she was on her feet on the bank and took off running into the forests nearby.

The sun was hot but Veren barely felt it on her skin. For one, the cover the forest provided was unusually complete, and secondly she could barely feel her own legs. The _enormity_ of what she had done hit her all at once. She was a fugitive now, with her daughter. Everyone they had known in the Alienage… they would never see them again. Veren had no practical survival skills, and had just escaped the city she’d lived in her whole life.

 _Fasta vass,_ she didn’t know anything about the area to the _immediate_ south, let _alone_ the _south_ south. She didn’t know how long or _where_ the forest she was running in went, a fact which made her hesitate. She paused which only served to highlight just how fast and directionless she’d been going, which seemed to disappoint Shri who had thought the _running_ was magnificent fun. She fussed and Veren hushed her, looking around.

She was lucky she saw the human before he could release his arrow.

She ducked to the side and Shri began to wail— the running was no longer fun and Veren could no longer pretend to be calm. She should have _thought_ that there would be humans in the forests so near to the city, this should have been part of the plan in the first place. _What bloody plan?_

Memorizing where she could escape was starting to feel less and less like an escape plan and more like Kavi’s stupid coup. There was no logic and no reason behind it— nothing but a longing that she hadn’t really thought would come to fruition. She wondered if that’s how her husband had died, thinking that after all his talk of injustice and the true destiny of the elves that he _had_ to do something. Shri had made him reckless, despite everything. His child deserved a world where she was as valuable to others as she was to her parents.

 _If you don’t move, she’ll die,_ she scolded herself. She pushed Kavi out of her head again, taking a deep breath and shooting forward. She tried to make her movements erratic, already knowing there was at least one archer in a group of indeterminable size. Perhaps she’d be lucky and he’d be just a lone hunter out for target practice. An elf was as good as any, if the price was right and the Altus was rich enough.

If there was one thing she could say with absolute certainty, it was that Kavi’s employer had been more than rich and the stupid coup had insulted his delicate _shem_ sensibilities. _Honour-blood_ fetched a high price, and even if these humans weren’t aware of it yet, elves were no different than deer to them.

She barely felt the first arrow tear open her calf, but she _felt_ the second one dig into her shoulder. She gasped and staggered dangerously, her cries a match for her child’s. Veren kept going, feeling her heart pound to bursting. Adrenaline moved her a fair distance, in her fading opinion, when she felt an arrow pierce her back and stick out through her stomach. She froze, a blurry part of her mind holding Shri out to make sure she hadn’t been hit too.

And someone took her.

An elf with the same lines on his face that Kavi had took her, his face wane. Somewhere in the distance, there were sounds of fighting.

Veren opened her mouth to tell the elf her name, Shri’s name, Kavi’s name… something to mark who they were. Shri’s name so she could grow into it, so she would always have a piece of her foolish parents even after all this.

The words never formed in her mouth, bubbling over with blood. She was dead before she hit the ground, listening to her child wail for her.

. . . . .

Deshanna studied the child who was sitting on the rug in the middle of her tent. Her hunters had returned with a story of the elven woman fleeing the slavers that pursued her with a baby strapped to her chest. She was clearly a flat-ear, which meant that her child was as well— not that it was old enough to be much of anything really.

“Did you speak to the woman before she died?” The Keeper tapped her quill on her desk, not taking her eyes from the baby. Three hunters had taken care of the threat to the Clan and returned the infant to the camp along with the body of her mother. A tree would be planted over her remains, for all it was worth to a flat-ear.

“No, Keeper.” Fevel had been the one to receive the baby— _strange, Keeper, she held her out for me to take and I just… did—_ and so was really the only one to witness the mother’s death. Deshanna trusted him, of course, but this situation was… unfortunate altogether. They would keep the child, but it would have been best for the mother to have lived as well; now they would have to find a place for it and a family to raise it.

Tara and her wife had just lost a child. Perhaps they would do.

“I suppose, then the best we can do is give it a name and move on,” she said simply. “We will have a ceremony for the mother, of course.”

“What were you going to call her?” Fevel had a soft heart, the poor thing. It was part of the reason she would trade him to a Nevarran Clan at the next Arlathvhen. She had a plethora of strong hunters whose first instinct was to kill the slavers, not to hold the baby— Lavellan needed crafters, anyway.

“Why don’t you decide while you take it to Tara and see if she’ll care for it?” she asked, gesturing down. It was the least she could do, as Fevel seemed attached to it. She would wait to trade the infant until it was older, on the off chance that it was a mage _(Elgar’nan_ they needed those too but no amount of hunters would buy such a boon), so there would be no point in bonding the infant to a man who would be leaving the clan.

He picked up the baby and left the tent. If he had a name for it then he wasn’t sharing, but it was really neither here nor there to Deshanna. The slaver threat was a much more pressing issue, as they certainly hadn’t been sniffing around the camp unintentionally. Nothing the humans in Tevinter ever did was by chance, and so the clan would move and take the baby with it.

 _After the ceremony,_ she reminded herself. _Least we could do for being too late._

. . . . .

“So you need a name, do you sweet thing?” Fevel asked the chubby nug in his arms. She burbled at him, still in high spirits despite her day. He shuddered to think what she would be like once she started to miss her mother, but he supposed it wasn’t his place to wonder… although he knew asking Tara and Fioelle to raise it would be a terrible insult. Deshanna was a better general than she was a caretaker, so he didn’t blame her for thinking that perhaps a new child would soothe the loss of the old one.

It just wouldn’t, was all.

“Well what should we call you?” he asked as she set to tugging at his braids. “Something bold, I think. Shame your poor mum never got to share your name with me.” A tragedy, really. Names were an important sort of thing, and it would’ve been a good start for her to have her first one even if she changed it later. “What sort of person do you think you’ll be?” he asked.

He was met with some serious-sounding baby blather, and laughed. She laughed with him, hiding her face like she was going to play peekaboo. _“Elgar’nan_ aren’t you precious?” If he could only stay a bit longer— bloody _Arlathvhen_ never came until it was inconvenient. “Well what about this— what sort of weapon will you use? Or maybe you won’t use any and stay tiny as a nug your whole life?”

The naming was more difficult than he thought it’d be. He could go with something easy like Revas, but she’d be the fifth child with the name just in her year alone. “What about Saevin?” he asked. More baby-talk, but he did like it. He couldn’t remember what it meant, only that it was what his father had wanted to name him if he’d been a girl. “I think it suits you, and it’s only the two easy syllables. Learning to spell it will be a breeze,” he told her as he rounded up on Tara and Fioelle’s tent.

He only hesitated for a second before tugging on the bell to announce himself. If they were alone in their tent in the middle of the day, perhaps he’d have a little time to say goodbye— unless they were just eating lunch, but he doubted it. “Saevin it is then, eh?” he asked, bouncing her a little. She giggled, going back to pulling his hair. “You’ll like it once you’re older, I think, and you know what words are. And who knows, maybe I’ll find you again and know it’s you just because you kept the name poor Fevel gave you.”

She chattered at him again and frankly he was a little sad he wouldn’t get to hang around until her babble became proper words. Dirthamen only knew what she would say once she got going.

**Author's Note:**

> All this time and I've never told yall the story of Veren and Kavi, Saevin's poor parents. Some of you who have been following along longer than others might noticed that I changed both Saevin's original name and her mother's, but quite frankly the other ones were stupid and didn't quite fit with the origin. I like it better now, and Saevin's dad gets a proper name. I sort of feel guilty that their only written story is how they both died because frankly their courtship was some fucking medieval courtly love shit. They were _disgustingly_ in love and everyone was like this is either going to end really good or really bad and unfortunately.........
> 
>  
> 
> [My writing blog is here](http://nebulaad.tumblr.com) in case you want to physically _see_ Saevin instead of just imagining how cute this baby is. I mean I don't have anything on her as a baby but she grew into one damn fine adult and somewhere from the elvish afterlife Kavi's gesturing downwards and looking at Veren like "What did I tell you? Our kid was so gorg that the Dread Wolf was literally almost turned good she has made no less than two ancient elves from literally Arlathan fall in love with her high five honey".


End file.
